Release Notes for Version 8.7 of AstrolDeluxe ReportWriter

Version 8.0.1 added a Search button to the Geo Names Atlas. The main issue addressed by this ability is that the astrologer might not be able to find the desired city in the Geo Names Atlas because it is spelled differently. There can be wide variation in the Romanized spelling of Chinese city names, for example. If the astrologer's spelling of the city is in Google, he can usually find a page with its coordinates. Then, after selecting the country file in the Geo Names Atlas form, enter the search coordinates in the longitude and latitude form that comes up after clicking on the Search button at the bottom of the Geo Names Atlas form. Depending on the speed of your computer, it can take a few seconds for the program to search all the 155,000 cities in China (this is more than the entire ACS International Atlas). The Russia file is even larger. Still, you should find it quite satisfying to identify the program's spelling of your city, to select the city in the Longitude/Latitude Search Results list, and then to click OK to see it listed in the Geo Names Atlas. Click Okay on that form to have the city transferred back to the ACS Atlas Lookup form, where, after you make sure that the date and time are correct, Read Atlas will find the time zone for that place and date, and then Transfer to Natal will move it to the Natal Information screen.

Version 8.0.2 commented out some lines for the Here & Now Transits report that were forcing the interpretation to be from the inner planet to the outer planet, wrongly borrowed from the compatibility report routine.

Version 8.0.2 coincided with a change to the hsc3032.dll and hsc6032.dll calculation libraries to handle extra-planetary bodies with extreme eccentricity. Discovered this problem for the distant object Sedna, whose eccentricity is 0.849. The record for orbital eccentricity seems to be held by 2006 SQ372, a small trans-Neptunian object with an eccentricity of 0.976. It turns out that the calculation inaccuracies previously noted for the asteroids Icarus and Hephaistos, with eccentricities of 0.827 and 0.834, were due to this undiscovered and now corrected limitation in the calculation libraries. Am adding the files for Sedna to the distribution CD, as opposed to including in the collection of 28 asteroids that can be downloaded from the web site Updates page. Also decided to add the files for Eris to the CD.

Version 8.0.3 added the transits and progressions report command SwapTimeWithName. Normally, the time that a transiting, progressed, or directed aspect occurs will appear after the aspect name in each aspect heading. But if you select and insert the new report order command, SwapTimeWithName, into a template's report order list and move it above DoTransitsGrid, then the time will appear first, before the aspect name.

Version 8.0.4 fixed some problems putting declination aspects into the aspects list when Sort Parallels into Aspects List is turned On at Miscellaneous Preferences. This problem dates to version 7.1.25 when I expanded/improved the declination synastry display.

Version 8.0.5 added more warnings when File, Merge Chart Files would cause loss of chart records through overwriting, including testing if a smaller number of records will be overwriting a larger number of records.

Version 8.0.6 fixed a problem with the directed midheaven and house cusps of a progressed chart when the sidereal zodiac is selected.

Version 8.0.7 allows the program to calculate solar arc directions against saved Dec-L.E. and Dec-Antiscia charts. Although these saved charts are Derived Charts, that is, artificial charts, which are normally excluded from being the basis for many of the transformations on the Options menu, an exception can be made for the solar arc directions transformation, which consistently directs every point in the saved chart forward by the amount of the progressed Sun's motion.

If you have one of these Declination Equivalent charts selected in the Saved Charts listbox and you go to Options, Progress a Chart, the only Progression Type available will be Solar Arc Directions. It will be the same if you go to Options, List Transits and Progressions, and with the Type set to Progressions or Directions you click on Calculate.

If you want to easily see all of the Dec-L.E. and Dec-Antiscia charts that you have saved in your charts file, go to Options, Research Charts, and click on the Derived Charts tab. Select the radio button for Include Only and the checkbox at the bottom for Declination-Longitude Equivalents. Click to Begin Search. Then you can double-click to display a wheel for any of the charts found. If you X out of the Chart Information screen, that chart will remain selected at the Natal Information screen for you to use with the Options menu.

Version 8.0.8 fixed a problem that could cut off the last couple of lines of an Aspect Patterns report instead of putting them on a new page, especially if the CutOffAtPatternCount command is used.

Version 8.0.8 fixed a problem in the web-enabled version of AstrolDeluxe ReportWriter where the PC Atlas was not being loaded properly in order to get the time zone of a return chart.

Version 8.0.8 makes a small change to the progressions list - it automatically turns off Insert Progressed to Progressed Planet Aspects if the checkbox List Orb dates collated with Exact dates is not checked. The Progressed to Progressed aspects really only make sense when they appear for the Exact date, not at the start or end of the list.

Towards the end of version 8.0.8 started distributing a new transits calculation dll, HST3032.DLL, that ensures getting aspects within orb even if the aspect is beyond a house cusp conjunction that has no orb.

Version 8.0.9 stops trying to close the old-style WinHelp upon program exit. Thought that this was causing Unable to load DLL error at program exit on a 64-bit Windows 7 machine, but that message may have been related instead to some incompatibility with a loaded version of Microsoft Access. Be aware that 64-bit Windows 7 will restore the correct versions of system files when it boots up, so error messages that appear right after installation should go away after you restart the computer.

Version 8.0.10 makes a small change to the progressed interpretation report. The program was checking if the Enter Orb or Leave Orb for a progressed aspect contained "0.0" and if it did the program skipped showing the Enter Orb and Leave Orb dates, but that meant that if the orb for the start date was "0.02" that no enter date and leave date would display. Changed it to check for "0.00".

Version 8.0.11 does not make any change to the program itself, but the version number marks the September 23, 2011 date when a major new acstt.dat file of time zone change tables starts to be distributed on the AstrolDeluxe CDs.

Version 8.0.12 improves the Geo Names Atlas comparison of its region to the PC Atlas region, improving the odds of matching the PC Atlas city with the Geo Names Atlas city.

Version 8.0.12 adds to Customization, Print Courtesy, a new frame In Case of Printing Problems and a checkbox Do Not Initialize Printer. One customer with an HP PSC-1210 All-In-One Printer on Windows 7 was not able to print anything from the Chart Information screen, although he was able to print the simple Subject Data List from the File menu of the Natal Information screen. Checking this box bypasses printer and font initializations that were sometimes necessary with earlier versions of Windows and which may have confused this particular model of HP printer.

Version 8.0.13 fixes More Chart Data for Client Info and Notes to not register a change in the data just from retrieving saved data. This eliminates the annoying message about the chart data having changed and do you want to save when you go to switch away from that chart.

Version 8.0.14 updates the Stamina functions library that is integrated with AstrolDeluxe to the latest version, from 2006.

Version 8.0.14 makes a fix to creating the composite chart. The composite chart for actress/dancer Ann-Margret, born at latitude 64 deg. North and her husband Roger Smith was messed up, with Aquarius on both the Ascendant and Descendant. Made sure that composite cusps 7 through 12 are all 180 degrees from cusps 1 through 6.

Version 8.0.14 added to Options, Research Charts, Search Two, the ability to find charts with a particular one of the eight possible Moon Phases: New, Crescent, First Quarter, Gibbous, Waning, Disseminating, Last Quarter, Balsamic.

Version 8.0.14 fixed a problem where the first person's name on a composite chart comparison could change in response to the double name question. It also enabled the reportwriter commands SubstituteMajorForMinorAspects & SubstituteSextileForQuintileAspects for the composite interpretation reports.

Version 8.0.14 fixed a problem with the planet in house search. The two options, 'Using an Advance Orb' and 'Use cusp proximity' were stomping on each other. If a searcher wanted to use both, the program was acting as if the house cusp had been changed to include the advance amount, so for example, if both were set to 3 degrees it was not finding a planet that was 1 degree inside the house - fixed so that the cusp proximity search is based on the actual cusp of the house. Also ensured that the cusp proximity search would work on planets in advance of the cusp if the desired proximity is less than the advance amount.

Each of the eight existing 45-degree moon phases was shortened by 10 degrees to make room for the addition of a 10-degree cusp leading to the next phase. This allows the interpretations to be more accurate.

These Moon Phases appear 1) for an individual chart at Display, Chart Analysis; 2) on a new search tab at Options, Research Charts, Search Two, By Moon Phase; and 3) in the separate Edit Interpretations program at Start, All Programs, Halloran Software at Add New, Frequency. The reportwriter adds a new MoonPhase command at Interpret, Report Options, Report Order, Report Items right before the DoBalanceSignElements command near the bottom. This command, inserted into a natal template or composite template, will grab the correct one of the 16 moon phase delineations entered into the interpretation database by the Edit Interpretations program. A future natal interpretation report will have good delineations of these 16 moon phases.

Version 8.0.15 fixed a problem where the Report Express menu could get into a loop if the user selected to do a StarMatch report or Composite Compatibility report and clicked Cancel instead of selecting the second person from the list displayed at the right side. Also ensured that if the user started doing a Journey Progressions report or Journey Returns report, but clicked Cancel at the form requesting the type of report that the Report Express process would terminate.

Version 8.0.16 initializes the planet retrograde flags when creating the composite chart. I noticed that the composite chart had the retrograde flags of the 2nd person to be compared, although the planets are the composite midpoints of two separate planets and have zero motion, neither direct nor retrograde.

Version 8.1.1 changed the name for the composite interpretation report on the Report Express menu from Composite Compatibility to Composite Couples.

Version 8.1.2 fixed a problem that could happen with the name of
the two people at the top of the composite report if, after creating
the biwheel and the single composite chart, the user saved the
composite chart record to file before generating the interpretation
report.

Version 8.1.3 implemented a change to the program installation that
tries to increase the Windows permissions level assigned to
AstrolDeluxe ReportWriter by briefly calling the installed winast32.exe
program as one of the final acts during installation. The setup132.exe
calls it with "exit" on the command-line and so instead of loading
all the way, winast32.exe starts loading and then immediately exits.
My hope is that this will prevent customers from encountering error
75 when they try to delete a saved chart, a problem that always
disappears if they right-click on the AstrolDeluxe ReportWriter
shortcut and select Run as Administrator, which increases the program's
Windows permissions level.

Version 8.1.3 also added a test that moredata.chk exists before trying
to delete it when the user wants to toggle off More Chart Data on the
Customization menu - if the file moredata.chk does not exist, trying
to kill it was causing error 53, File not found. This relates back to
a change made at minor version 7.1.17. If your charts.cht file has
a companion charts.mdb file and you really do not want More Chart Data
on, perhaps because something has gone wrong with the Microsoft Jet
Access subsystem on your computer, then I suggest renaming the
charts.mdb file to have a different name. This is as good a place as
any to mention how if you cannot see the *.mdb extension or any other
three-letter extension when you are out in My Computer and looking
at your files, it is because the default in Windows is to hide the
extensions for known file types - you can turn off this frustrating
feature at Folder Options, View by unchecking the box Hide Extensions
for Known File Types. In Windows XP, Folder Options was on the Tools
menu, but Vista/Windows 7 moved Folder Options to the Organize menu.

Version 8.2.1 fixed an aspect pattern display problem that was
occasionally causing one of the planets and vertices of an Octile
Hexagon pattern to drop from the pattern, first noted for the chart
of Ed Sullivan, born 9/28/1901 at 3:30 AM in Manhattan, NY. Also
changed the routine to not be so aggressive in removing Octile Hexagon
duplicate patterns just because they share some of the same vertices.

Version 8.2.1 adds a feature first created for the new Astrology for
Windows, version 3, where if you retrieve a saved composite chart and
compare it to a natal chart and create a new composite chart, the name
of the composite chart will have the word Triad in it. If you save
that new composite it will be in the saved charts listbox under the
last name, but with the first name followed by -Triad and the initials
of the first names of the two components of the first composite chart.
For example, my Triad chart with the composite of my parents is listed
under Halloran, John-Triad-RK, where R and K are my parent's initials.

Version 8.2.1 added a scroll bar for the Natal House Advance Orb Width
to the Customization, House System form. This sets a global variable
that is used at Display, Chart Analysis where the house that a planet
is in appears in parentheses () after the planet's zodiac location. In
order not to upset existing users, the default advance orb is set to
0 degrees, even though Astrology for Windows, version 3, uses a default
value of 4 degrees at its Customization, Horoscope Report Options form.

The Composite Compatibility feature that is new with version 8.2 depends
in part on the house placements of the planets in the composite chart.
In order to get the most accurate results, I recommend that you set the
house advance orb at Customization, House System to between 2 and 5
degrees. Unlike the zodiac signs, where a planet at 29d 59m Pisces
really is in Pisces, house cusps are more like power points - a planet
that looks like it is in the previous house, but which is close to the
next house cusp, lends its power, nature, and influence to that house.
The signs color the expression of the planets' energies, but the
planets' energies affect the affairs governed by each house. House
placements can only be considered when birth times are known.

Version 8.2.1 adds a page of Composite Compatibility calculations to
the bottom of the Display menu. The page ranks the compatibility of
couples for FRIENDSHIP, BUSINESS, and MARRIAGE by comparing the aspects
and house placements in the couple's composite chart to the extensive
frequency tables for married, divorced, and famous couples that I
compiled in the Spring of 2012 while working on the Composite Couples
interpretation report. The page also ranks the couple in different power
areas, based on how close and how many are the contacts that each planet
has in the composite chart, ranking their power in such areas as:
WILL, FEELINGS, INTELLIGENCE, HARMONY, ACTION, SPONTANEITY, DISCIPLINE,
INDEPENDENCE, COMPASSION, and COERCION. If the couple's birth times are
known, then the page will also rank how much they focus on different life
areas, such as: WE, OURS, DAILY CONCERNS, INTIMACY, CREATIVE PROJECTS,
SEARCH FOR MEANING, RELATING TO OTHERS, MUTUAL SHARING, EXPLORING THE WORLD,
PUBLIC LIFE, GROUP ACTIVITIES, and SPIRITUAL ONENESS. The program looks at
both the number of planets in each composite chart house and at the power
of that house's ruling planet. All rankings are in percentages compared
to the range of observed values for a random population of composite charts.

In order to throw some light on what is behind the FRIENDSHIP, BUSINESS,
and MARRIAGE rankings, the page ends with a display of the top aspects and
planet placements that contributed the most to a high ranking and to a low
ranking. If the composite chart had a planet house placement that
contributed to a high BUSINESS ranking, then there will be a final line that
mentions the strongest planet house placement that contributed to the
BUSINESS ranking.

The captions for the Composite Compatibility page are all read from a file
Keywords.txt, so as long as you respect the format and layout of this file,
you can change the captions.

Version 8.2.1 ensured that the size of the image at the center of the chart
wheel is consistent even at different screen resolutions. It also improved
the positioning of the numbers and glyphs on the single, double, triple, and
quad wheels at very high screen resolutions.

Version 8.2.2 tests that the assigned TrueType glyph font (normally Halloran)
is still installed in Windows. If you upgrade your computer from Windows
Vista to Windows 8, it preserves your AstrolDeluxe settings, in which you
may have Use Astrological Font turned on for the text tables or for the
wheel in Customization, but after upgrading to Windows 8 you will need to
reinstall the separately purchased add-on of the Halloran fonts from the
AstrolDeluxe ReportWriter CD. If the font test fails, the program will
revert to normal mode where Use Astrological Font is not turned on.

Version 8.2.3 adds to the Here and Now Transits Report the ability to use
the optional report command SubstituteMajorForMinorAspects, in order to
have interpretations for major aspects like the square substitute for minor
aspects like the semi-square.

Version 8.2.4 gets a new version number to signify an update to the
transits calculation dll, hst3032.dll. "The update fixes a problem that in
some cases could cause missing transits in the chronological transits list
after a transiting planet changes direction (was only when Use Orbs are
not selected for the transiting planet - you were doing exact aspects only,
no enter orb or leave orb dates for the transiting planet. The problem
only happened for certain charts, but when it did, it could also make
the calculation seem sluggish)."

Version 8.2.5 adds the ReferNever command to Interpret, Report Options for
transits or progressions reports. It is normal in some cases for a transits
or progressions interpretation report to refer the reader to another date in
order to read a particular transiting or progressed aspect delineation, such
as to a date when the aspect is closer or exact, in order to avoid
duplication. But if you select and insert the new report order command,
ReferNever, into a template's report order list and move it above
DoTransitsGrid, then delineations will appear in full every time.

Version 8.2.6 fixes a zodiac sign font size problem that was happening when
Use Astrological Font, Wheel, is turned on at Customization and when the
regular chartwheel is on the screen and one chooses File, Print with Grids.
The glyphs down in the grid for the zodiac signs were printing too large
because a wrong value parameter was being passed to that routine.

Version 8.2.6 expands the scope of the checkbox In Case of Printing Problems, Do Not
Initialize Printer at Customization, Print Courtesy to not bring up the
printer dialog box. This fixed a printing problem for two customers who were
able to print okay from Windows 7, but who were unable to print from
Windows 8. The problem may be attributable to the Windows 8 printer drivers
being incompatible with the Common Dialog control for printing, which the checkbox
now allows them to bypass.

Version 8.3.1 adds the ability to find aspects in different harmonics other
than the first or radical chart harmonic. This feature is now at Options,
Research Charts, Search Two, By Aspect. The new feature says "Search
in a Chart Harmonic of" followed by a listbox where the first and default
setting is 1 = Normal, but the user can select or enter other harmonic
numbers. The inspiration for this feature was Chapter 11, Dodekatemoria:
An Ancient Technique Reexamined, in Robert Hand's 1982 book, Essays on
Astrology. Robert Hand's 1982 essay sees one type of the ancient
dodekatemoria positions of the planets as being the same as the modern
13th harmonic. In Mr. Hand's 13th harmonic chart, Mercury conjoins Uranus,
which could explain his attraction to astrology and computers, while Venus
squares Neptune and the Sun trines Saturn, perhaps giving the combination
of insight and scholarship for which he is known.

The new search feature allows the program user to set the Harmonic to any
number, including 13, and search the 5113 Famous Charts for Mercury conjunct
Uranus, which yields 62 results, and then search for Sun trine Saturn which
narrows it down to three men - Robert Hand, actor Ian McKellen (Gandalf the
Wizard), and jazz composer Thelonius Monk. All three project the image of
bearded wise man. We would not know that they have anything in common if we
did not look at the 13th harmonic aspects. Every chart must be looked at as
a whole, but it can be instructive to compare people who have major aspects
in common.

You can also check the By Aspect search checkbox '1st planet is Natal, 2nd
planet is Harmonic'. This lets you find charts that have specific contacts
between harmonic planets and natal planets.

On the Search One tab, the By House search adds 'Using natal houses, search
in chart harmonic of ' with a listbox to select the desired harmonic for
the specified planet. You may, for example, want to find all charts that
have a 13th harmonic Uranus in the natal 2nd house - after selecting Uranus
in the 2nd House, just change the harmonic from the default value of
1 = Normal to 13 and click the search button with the binoculars. The Famous
Charts collection will show 232 chart records, including Bill Gates. If you
double-click on Bill Gates it does not show Uranus in the natal 2nd house,
but if you select Display, Harmonic/Modulus Charts and select 13 and Harmonic
and Okay, it will display the chart in the 13th Harmonic Zodiac and if you
then click File and Compare Harmonic Chart to Natal Chart, then you will see
the 13th Harmonic Uranus in the natal 2nd house where it conjoins the close
natal Jupiter-Pluto conjunction and squares the harmonic Midheaven.

I experimented with adding a search for a planet in a particular harmonic
house, but removed it because harmonic houses are not true houses. Instead
the program calculates the harmonic of the ascendant and then does equal
houses from the resulting ascendant, mainly providing a framework in which
to plug in and display the calculated harmonic planets.

Version 8.3.1 makes other improvements to what you can do with harmonic
charts.

First of all, previous program versions in the Aspects List only showed
conjunction aspects, regardless of whether it was a Modulus chart or a
Harmonic chart. The new version shows all types of aspects between the
planets of a Harmonic-type chart, and it uses the wide orbs allowed for
natal charts. After you click on Aspects List for a Harmonic-type chart,
you can click Sort by Orbs at the bottom, which will let you see which are
the harmonic chart's most exact aspects.

The Aspects List still shows just the conjunction aspects between the
planets of a Modulus-type chart and it uses the narrow conjunction
aspect orbs that are defined at Customization, Aspect Orbs for midpoints.

The reason for treating Modulus-type charts and Harmonic-type charts
differently is because modulus charts cut the 360-degree wheel down to
just the initial segment defined by the modulus, such as the 90-degree dial
(that results from a modulus of 4) only extending from 0 Aries to
30 Gemini (on the 90-degree dial, planets that are conjunct, square, or
opposed in the radical chart will all appear conjunct). Harmonic charts,
on the other hand, keep the 360-degree wheel because their positions result
from multiplying the radical positions by the harmonic number - if the
resulting positions exceed 360 degrees then any excess multiples of 360
are discarded.

After you display a Harmonic chart (but not a Modulus chart), you will now
have a choice on the File menu - Compare Harmonic Chart to Natal Chart.
This is consistent with what Robert Hand does in Chapter 11 of Essays on
Astrology where he inserts the 13th harmonic planets around natal charts
for himself, Richard Nixon, and Eleanor Roosevelt and notes the aspects
formed to the natal planets. For example, Eleanor Roosevelt's natal Saturn
in the Seventh House conjoins her 13th harmonic Pluto. My wife's natal
Jupiter in the Seventh House conjoins her 13th harmonic Uranus. These
Seventh House interharmonic aspects seem to describe the husband. It is
a good idea to examine all the major harmonics - actress Demi Moore, whose
natal Part of Fortune conjoins the Seventh House cusp, has a very active
7th Harmonic chart. After you have the biwheel of harmonic to natal,
you can select Display, Synastry to see and sort the interaspects. Or,
you can double-click once on a harmonic planet to see its harmonic chart
aspects and double-click a second time to see its aspects to the natal
planets. Also, the File menu choice will say Compare to Third Chart,
which would let you click on the Here and Now button and Calculate in order
to see the transits to both the inner natal chart and the middle harmonic
chart from an outer third wheel.

You can generate, examine, and compare charts based on other Harmonic
numbers besides the 13th. On page 114 of his 1976 book *Harmonics in
Astrology*, John Addey says, "there lies concealed within the natal map
an endless series of sub-charts, each with its own range of symbolic
content and application." On page 265 of his 1983 book *Harmonic Charts*,
David Hamblin says that he regularly looks at what he calls the H4, H5,
H7,and H9. Mr. Hamblin then says that his priority for looking at
additional harmonics would be H11, H3, H13, H16, H12 and H25. Be aware
that it is not valid to compare the planets of one harmonic to the planets of
a different harmonic, so there is no facility to separately save the
calculated harmonic charts, although you can print or save their images.
The harmonic charts in which many planets are closely linked should be
the active charts with which the native resonates, as opposed to the
harmonics that show little pattern. With version 8.3, AstrolDeluxe gives
you the tools that you need to discover which are the effective harmonic
charts.

The dodekatemoria used by almost all ancient astrologers, beginning with
the Babylonians, involved multiplying the planet's position in the sign
by 12. Sometimes this is expressed differently by saying that you
multiply by 13 but in this case you add the result to the start of the
sign, so the end result is the same. The only ancient astrologer who
really describes using the 13th harmonic method described in Robert Hand's
essay is the 5th century Paulus Alexandrinus in his chapter on the
Twelfth Parts. So while Robert Hand found the 13th harmonic chart to be
significant for himself and others, it is not clear that we can justify
elevating the 13th harmonic above the other harmonics by equating it to
the ancient dodekatemoria.

Version 8.3.1 adds complete Sabian Symbol interpretations.

The Sabian Symbols are the most well-known and completely developed of
the many attempts to assign particular meanings to the 360 degrees of
the Zodiac. Degree symbolism is a different kind of astrology from your
typical Uranus-ruled astrology. It is a more poetic, Neptunian type of
astrology in which synchronicity and serendipity rule, as opposed to
mathematical cause and effect. For example, there is no scientific reason
why Pope Francis should be both the 266th pope and have his Sun in the
266th degree of the Zodiac, Sagittarius 26, where the Sabian Symbol of
A Flag-Bearer is very appropriate. The nonrational, Neptunian side of
the universe uses synchronicity to let us know that the universe is
alive, that there is more happening than just physical cause and effect.
For the new pope's complete Sabian Symbol report, see the page on
Sabian Symbols at the Halloran Software web site. The Sabian Symbol
images and interpretations provide plenty of helpful hints to
astrologers who depend upon their intuition when giving a reading.

The zodiac degrees for the Ascendant, the House cusps, and the Part of
Fortune change about every four minutes. As a result, the astrologer can
use the Sabian Symbol degree meanings to rectify an approximate time of
birth - I used them to rectify the Pope's birthtime from the reported time
of 9:00 PM to 9:05 PM.

Dr. Marc Edmund Jones worked with professional medium Elsie Wheeler
in 1925 to access these 360 images. Page 334 of The Sabian Symbols
in Astrology says, "The pictures which Miss Wheeler saw came from
various sources, as far as their substance was concerned. Some were
directly out of her own experience, or as she reached out to take them
from other minds directly available to her. Some were beyond her range
of comprehension and were impressed upon her consciousness, and so were
received in distorted fashion or with an overlay of detail which had to
be screened out. As events have shown, her total contribution was an
exceptional achievement."

Dr. Jones has an interesting chart. Born on October 1, 1888 at 8:37 AM
in Saint Louis, Missouri, he was part of the first wave of births to
have the epochal Neptune-Pluto conjunction of the early 1890s; in his
case the conjunction orb is 3d43m and Neptune also opposes Jupiter, with
1d00m orb. He combines this strong Neptune with a tight Talent Triangle
focused on Uranus, where the Moon and Saturn are both at 17d Leo conjunct
the Midheaven, in trine to Mars in the 2nd House at 14d Sagittarius, and
sextile to Uranus on the 12th House cusp at 17d Libra. In my article
https://www.halloran.com/Neptune_conjunct_Pluto_1398_Gutenberg.htm,
I wrote about the magically-endowed people who are born approximately
every 493 years at the different Neptune-Pluto conjunctions. As with
Johannes Gutenberg, to whom the printing press idea came like "a ray
of light," Dr. Jones was able to combine science and technology,
represented by Saturn and Uranus, with the intuition of Neptune and
the broad vision of Pluto. Regarding these Sabian Symbols, Dr. Jones
says, "The zodiacal degree symbols supplement the regular analysis of
planetary position in the zodiac by presenting a stimulus to intuition
in a broadening perspective ...."

Regarding how the degrees are defined, he continues, "and again this
is a definite technique with special textbook treatment. It is necessary
to note that a degree is usually taken in very fixed definition. Thus
any fraction of one of them puts the consideration into the frame of
the next whole. Aries 1deg. 01min. becomes Aries 2 in the symbolism."
(The Marc Edmund Jones 500, Volume 1 (1978), page 171)

In the case of Alfred Lowenstein, SS#601, whose Moon displays in the
Table of Planets and Houses as 12Aqu00, double clicking brings up the
Sabian Symbol for Aquarius 12. When you toggle the 360 degree format
display, his Moon displays as 311.9998, double clicking on which also
brings up Aquarius 12.

In the case of Albert II, SS#14, whose Mars displays as 03Gem00, double
clicking brings up Gemini 3. In the 360 degree format, his Mars displays
as 63.00565. In that case, double clicking on it brings up Gemini 4.

In this way, the user has some choice over what they get. If SS chart
#754 with Mercury at 00Pis00 in the book, treated as Pisces 1, is any
indication, such cases are both rare and ambiguous.

Since AstrolDeluxe rounds 00d00m31s to 00d01m, it will bring up
Sabian 01 for a case like this. No alternative is provided. 00d00m29s
will bring up Sabian 30, unless in the 360 degree format, in which case
it will bring up Sabian 1.

Halloran Software acknowledges guidance and assistance both
directly and indirectly from members of the Sabian Assembly in
adding the Sabian Symbols program feature.

A final note: the program user can add to or change the text in the pop-up
window. There is room to add three or four lines of additional text. The
text is retrieved from and saved to a file called SABIAN.DAT, which is a
360K size file where the record length is 1K or 1024 bytes. The longest
Sabian interpretation was about 600 bytes, which leaves room for the
program user to add text. The SABIAN.DAT file will not get overwritten
if the program or a new version is installed because the distributed file is
called SABSRC.DAT - AstrolDeluxe only copies it to SABIAN.DAT if
SABIAN.DAT does not exist. One user has already said that he wants
to add alternative degree interpretations, his own observations, and
compare to other authors.

Version 8.3.2 fixes a problem where the aspect pattern detection module
could find a Yod pattern where the 'sextile' planets did not have a wide
enough angle, e.g., 48 degrees apart instead of closer to 60 degrees apart.

Version 8.3.3 fixes a problem introduced by 8.3.1. When one has calculated
a derived chart such as a return chart or a progressed chart and picks the
File menu choice 'Compare [derived type] chart to natal chart' the planets
in the outer wheel could be in the wrong houses. I introduced this problem
when adding the ability to compare harmonic charts to natal charts. The
Journey Returns solar return interpretation report could report the wrong
house placements as a result of this problem, so the fix is particularly
needed by users of Journey Returns.

Version 8.3.3 is the first version to start automatically reporting the
minor version number on the program's opening screen and at Help, About
AstrolDeluxe ReportWriter. This enables users to easily see if they have
installed the fix.

Version 8.3.4 detects if a composite chart has the word Triad in the
first name field and if it does then the program switches from using
composite interpretations to using natal interpretations. What I am finding
is that Triad charts have at least one very close aspect pattern, on account
of the birth to that set of parents having been planned from the Other Side.
So the Halloran Aspect Patterns is the natal report that one wants to run,
in order to discover the soul's purpose in being born, as opposed to
delineations of the Triad chart's sign and house placements. If the
report finds and delineates more than one aspect pattern, focus on just
the delineation of the most exact pattern.

Version 8.3.5 fixes a problem with Display, Rise/Set Times. It was possible
for one or more of the Rise/Set/Culminate times listed for the different
planets to be off by several minutes, on account of a sidereal day
boundary having been crossed. The fastest way to test the accuracy of
these Rise/Set/Culminate times is to enter one of the times at Edit,
Rotate/Rectify Chart, click Redraw or Okay, and then click on Display, Prime
Vertical Chart. If the time is correct, the planet will appear in the
Prime Vertical Chart at the desired cardinal point with 0 and 0 for the
degrees and minutes. It is necessary to do this because all planets
except the Sun have ecliptic latitude, so to see when a planet rises
the zodiac longitude is not sufficient. The Prime Vertical Chart takes
both latitude and longitude into account. I have checked these times
for a number of charts from both east and west of Greenwich, but if you
still find a problem, please e-mail the details to me.

Version 8.4.1 lets you click on the Planet Strengths bar graph to see
exactly what aspects are contributing to a planet's harmony or inharmony
in the single wheel, the biwheel, the triwheel, or the quadwheel chart that
you currently have on-screen. You first pop up the colorful Planet Strengths
bar graph by selecting Planet Strengths from near the top of the Display
menu. Then, as an example of the new feature, if you click on the lower
part of its red bar for Mars, the single planet aspects window will open
with a caption of Mars Inharmony, and it will list all of the inharmonious
Mars aspects that are contributing to the size of the bar, together with
their angle and orb. Since the aspects are sorted by strength, the
strongest and closest aspects will appear at the top of the list.

A quadwheel typically consists of inner Natal chart, inner middle Progressed
chart, outer middle Minor progressed (or solar arc directions) chart, and
outer Transits chart. To tell you which chart's planets make up each
listed aspect, the letters 'n', 'p', 'm', and 't' will precede the planet
names. If you have a solar or lunar return chart triwheel, consisting of
inner natal chart, middle return chart, and outer transits chart, the
letters 'n', 'r', and 't' will precede the planet names. The program knows
that you want to see aspects between middle chart planets, such as progressed
and return charts (but not solar arc directions). Other possible types of
derived charts that can appear in the middle wheel of a triple wheel,
selected from the different Options menu choices, will put a generic '2'
before the planet name.

I have been testing a new Smart Astrology 1.0 smartphone app that shows
at a glance the current energies from the major progressions and transits
for the smartphone user's saved chart. I programmed choices into this app
that should meet the needs of many astrologers who want to stay on top of
what energies are currently affecting them. AstrolDeluxe now lets you do
the same thing at your keyboard, but it gives you flexibility. You can pick
any saved chart that you like and choose which type of comparisons become
part of the Planet Strengths bar graph display. AstrolDeluxe has always made
the process of comparing progressed, transits, and return charts to the natal
chart fast and easy. The new tool offers you fast, unprecedented insight
into all the harmonious and inharmonious energies that are affecting a person
at a given moment.

Version 8.4.1 also extends the accuracy for Chiron, Ceres, Pallas, Juno,
and Vesta 150 years back further, from the year 1800 to the year 1650.
These five are the additional asteroids that you can add to the graphic
wheel display at Customization, Planets. The accuracy for Chiron in this
distant period is now within 7 minutes and the accuracy for Ceres, Pallas,
Juno, and Vesta is within 1 minute. The inaccuracy of these asteroid points
before the year 1800 was an issue particularly for the 1776 USA birth chart.
It was embarrassing to have to tell users to turn off the display of these
asteroid points before using or sharing that year 1776 chart. But there are
also many other historical charts for which you would like all AstrolDeluxe
points to be accurate. The Famous Charts collection includes 107 historical
personages who were born between the years 1650 and 1800 (according to
Research Charts, Search Two, By Birthday).

Version 8.4.1 adds the ability to have a 30-degree sort strip on the printed
chart for the graphic aspects wheel. If at Customization, Initial Chart
Display you change the display from Rounded Degrees to Degrees and Minutes
and you either make the Graphic Aspects wheel the default chart or you pick
Graphic Aspects from the Display menu, when you either Print that chart or
you choose Save Page as Image File, then the grid of planet positions at the
bottom right will change from printing in planet order to printing in order
from 0 degrees to 30 degrees, regardless of the sign that the planet is in,
so a planet at 2 degrees Pisces will come before a planet at 4 degrees Leo.
This mainly helps the astrologer to easily see if a transit or eclipse at
a particular degree area is likely to affect a person.

Version 8.4.2 fixes two problems related to auto-chart-rotation. The first problem was that on Windows 7 and Windows 8 systems, if the Planet Strengths bar graph was open, it did not update or refresh with each new auto-calculated chart (last item on the Edit menu, mainly used when you have a biwheel, triwheel, or quadwheel on the screen). Although it refreshed on Windows XP systems when the bar graph was touching the Chart Information screen, the bar graph could not be off to the side. Now, the bar graph can be off to the side where it stays visible and it will update on all Windows versions. The second problem is that if one pressed escape or clicked Cancel while the chart for a date was clearing, the planets would be left in the wrong houses. Found a simpler and faster way for the program to cancel auto-rotation that does not cause this problem.

Version 8.4.3 fixes a small bug. Clicking to see the Inharmonious or Harmonious aspects for a planet on the Planet Strengths bar graph was leaving an internal program switch with the wrong value so that clicking on the Graphic Aspects wheel was just showing the aspect lines at the center, not the wheel itself.

Version 8.4.4 tried unsuccessfully to fix a problem where on Windows 8, trying to use the treeview control, from a newer version of the comctl32.ocx file, by selecting File, Save Birth Data to XML File, instead of giving an error message, inexplicably shuts down the program. Instead of having the program mysteriously shut down, I prefer to distribute the older comctl32.ocx file so that the user gets an actual error message that Windows was unable to load the file. This problem started occurring in 2013 with a Windows security update. It is a known problem which it does not look like Microsoft will fix.

Version 8.4.5 adds to the chart Display menu, Local Space Chart, also known as a Horizon coordinate system chart.

Version 8.4.6 makes a fix to the solar return report, which I apparently broke when working on the planet strengths bar graph for version 8.4, since the solar return report was working fine with version 8.3.3. Specifically, the report was not delineating any of the return planet to return planet aspects.

Version 8.5.1 adds to the Options menu, for the currently selected chart, maps of the Local Space planet lines radiating out from the birth place. These planet lines are also called the azimuth lines or the horizon chart lines. The energy of each natal planet is more active and available along the direction of its line. The plane that goes from the birth place to the planet and through the center of the earth describes a great circle line on the surface of the earth, which a computer can draw on maps by means of spherical trigonometry. The lines take into account the latitude of one's birth place as well as each planet's declination and right ascension.

These are still the planets of the natal chart, so if Mars is in Gemini and the native travels along his Mars line, Mars will manifest in a Gemini kind of way and it will reflect whatever aspects it has in the natal chart.

The program will warn you if you select a Unknown Birth Time chart. If you continue, the planet lines will be as if the chart was for a sunrise birth (there may still be some validity to these solar chart lines). The planet line positions are definitely sensitive to and are a function of the time of birth.

Version 8.5.1 also starts shipping a revised version of the HSC6032.DLL planetary calculations library. Previous versions skipped calculating the declination positions for the additional asteroids, 53 of which ship with the program and 30 more of which you can download from the Updates page at halloran.com.

There are six Local Space Maps, for the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Australia/New Zealand, and the World. When you have one of the Local Space Maps on the screen, you can click a button at the bottom - Customize Lines - in order to bring up a control Turn Planets On/Off. On this control there are two checkboxes, Show Glyph and Show Line, for each planet (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Moon's North Node, Chiron, Ceres, Pallas, Juno, Vesta, and Black Moon Lilith). Each planet is identified with its glyph and, if you hover the mouse on the glyph, a tool tip will remind you which glyph is for which planet.

The Turn Planets On/Off control has an asteroids listbox in which you can scroll down which shows all the asteroids that you have preselected at Customization, Asteroids. You can select one additional asteroid at a time in order to see its line on the map. The identifying glyph circles on the asteroid's line will have the last digit of the asteroid's discovery number, as shown in its glyph box to the right of the listbox. The Redraw button for the map is at the upper left of the Turn Planets On/Off control.

Moving the mouse onto one of the map lines will show you the longitudes and latitudes that the line crosses and clicking will bring up a list of cities from the integrated ACS PC Atlas that are near where you clicked. This gives you finer detail than is obvious just from looking at the outlines of state and country boundaries. And if you are thinking of relocating along one of your more favorable planet lines, this way the program gives you the names of interesting locations to research.

Since version 8.0, at Customization, Map Astrological Fonts, AstrolDeluxe users have been able to map a 2nd astrological glyph font set such as the Halloran TrueType Font for the graphic wheel and turn it on at Customization, Use Astrological Font, by toggling Wheel On. This is in addition to the 1st glyph font mapping, which is for text lists and tables. The Halloran TrueType Fonts are an optional $49 purchase and if you do not turn Wheel On, the program will draw the astro glyphs graphically for both the wheel and for the astro maps. The new version 8.5 extends the ability to substitute the sharper TrueType font glyphs to the astro maps, both for the old astrocartography style maps and for the new Local Space Maps, which add glyph circles along the planet lines within the body of the maps. The Customization menu choice of Use Astrological Font, Wheel On works for the graphic wheels, the Boehrer graphic declination chart, and the maps on the Options menu.

Version 8.5.2 fixed a problem with the glyphs displaying on the bottom of the pop-up Planet Strengths graph that only occurred if at Customization, Use Astrological Font the choice Wheel On was checked AND if the user had double-clicked on a planet glyph on the wheel in order to bring up the Single Planet Aspects pop-up window.

Version 8.5.3 makes a number of fixes to the Show On Map button for countries in Europe. This button is on the ACS Atlas Lookup form. Not only was the Europe map being incorrectly shrunk in size, but some European countries were not mapped in code to the Europe map, so that they brought up the less-detailed World map instead, when the user clicked on the Show On Map button. The biggest omission was the entire country of the Netherlands, but I also fixed it so that if a place in Russia, Ukraine, or Turkey that is West of longitude 35 East is selected, the place will show on the more-detailed Europe map instead of the World map. I also mapped all the small countries that are listed in the PC Atlas, such as Liechtenstein, Guernsey, Monaco, San Marino, et cetera, so that a cross will show on the Europe map for a city belonging to one of these principalities or islands.

Version 8.5.3 also ensures that screen resolutions in which there are many more pixels in the vertical direction then in the horizontal direction do not make any map's height greater than 83% of the screen height, which could encroach upon the controls at the bottom of the screen.

With version 8.5.3 I discovered that there could be problems when the mapped astro font was selected for both Text On and for Wheel On at the same time. For example, if no planet lines are drawn at Astro-Mapping, go back to Customization, Use Astrological Font, and uncheck Text On. Also, I had to change the font of the Aspect Patterns listbox at Display, Graphic Aspects in order to show the planet glyphs correctly.

Version 8.5.4 improved the positions of the planet degrees in the on-screen
triple wheel and quad wheel, especially for huge, high resolution screen
sizes.

Version 8.5.5 marks when I fixed the HSC6032.DLL calculation library to
restore correct Chiron calculations for the years 1950 to 2100. This problem
started with version 8.5.1. The corrected dll is also a free download from
the Updates page.

Version 8.5.6 changed the default natal aspect orbs for the 45d semi-square
and the 135d sesquiquadrate from 2d to 4d and 3d, matching the inconjunct.
At Customization, Aspect Orbs, click the button Set to Default. This change
will help delineations for these significant aspects to appear higher in the
aspect section of natal reports, where aspects appear sorted by strength.
The strength values are based on subtracting the actual orb from the
allowable orb, which this change increases.

Version 8.5.6 added the option at Interpret, Report Options for Moon's Node
and Chiron sign and house placements to these Report Templates: Career,
KidZone, KidZone with Sun/Moon, KidZone Combo Full, and Classic. With one of
these selected in the Report Template listbox at the upper middle of the
form, click on Report Order and click the button in the middle: Default List.
The Standard template already had commands to include Moon's Node and Chiron
sign and house placements in a report. If the program does not find the
specified delineation paragraph in the interpretations database, the command
is ignored. I actually made these additions in the NATALDF.INI file, which
users should never edit. Clicking the Default List button copies the report
order command list that is in NATALDF.INI to the user's NATAL.INI file.

Version 8.5.7 modifies the map caption for an astrocartography style map or a local space style map if, after displaying the screen version of one of these maps for a person, the user gets into the PC Atlas by left clicking on the map to get a short list of cities near the click location, chooses one, and then puts the city that they want into the PC Atlas and clicks the Show On Map button. Instead of overwriting the name of the astro map subject person with just the name of the place shown, the map caption now appends the word "showing" and the new place after the astro map subject's name. So now the caption says not only whose lines are on the map but what location the Show On Map cross represents. This is helpful information on either a screen capture or a printout of the astro map.

Version 8.5.8 fixes a problem getting natal interpretations for a planet conjunct the Moon's South Node. Both the Personal Path and Spirit Success natal interpretation sets include delineations for the planets, Ascendant, and Midheaven conjunct both the North Node and the South Node, but reports were only including the North Node conjunction interpretations. This is because in the aspects list, the South Node conjunction appears as an opposition to the North Node. Instead of modifying the interpretation sets, I have modified the program to convert a North Node opposition to a South Node conjunction before doing the interpretation database lookup.

Version 8.6.1 adds the ability to draw upon gender-specific interpretation files at the time of generating either a Personal Path or Spirit Success natal report. If you are generating either of these natal reports, the program will check the report subject's gender. If male, then the program will check for the existence of a npromc.hnp or nprom.hnp file. If female, then the program will check for the existence of a nprofc.hnp or nprof.hnp file. Initially these files will contain gender-specific Moon's Node aspect interpretations. John Halloran has researched and written separate sets of interpretations for males and females for aspects to the Moon's North and South Nodes. John will sell and deliver nprom.hnp and nprof.hnp files. The AstrolDeluxe ReportWriter user can use a new version 8.6 of the companion Edit Interpretations program to create copies of these files, producing npromc.hnp and nprofc.hnp, which you can then edit. The reportwriter program is written to use the customized gender file ending with the letter c, if it exists, in preference to the distributed file without the c ending. Eventually, as either John or the program user researches and writes gender-specific interpretations for further planets, the ability to grab separate delineations for males and females could lead to the majority of your natal report becoming more accurate and helpful.

Version 8.6.1 fixes a problem getting aspects to the Black Moon Lilith in the outer wheel of a progressed or return chart biwheel. Since the Black Moon Lilith was added in the middle of the astrology program's history, there is a variable that stores if the saved chart has its position. This variable was being retrieved for a normal comparison, but not for a progressed or return chart comparison.

Version 8.6.1 adds a table of Altitudes for the Local Space Chart and a table of Prime Vertical Latitudes for the Prime Vertical Chart to the Display menu when one of these charts has been selected. Michael Erlewine claims that a planet becomes more powerful in a chart when its local space chart altitude is close to zero, which means on the horizon. Local space azimuths do not need to be listed because these are the positions on the wheel.

Version 8.6.1 adds to the natal chart Display menu near the bottom, right above Planet & House Table, a new choice: Solstice Points (Antiscia). Antiscia is the plural of antiscion, which means 'opposite shadow'. These points are reflections or shadows of the normal planet points relative to the 0d Cancer and 0d Capricorn tropical solstice axis. Astrologers use these points primarily in looking at chart synastry and transits. Ancient astrologers said that these points are able to "see each other." I was quite surprised when I saw all the close synastry connections between my solstice points and my wife's planet points. Solstice points for the middle of Capricorn align with planet points in the middle of Sagittarius and Gemini. Don't worry that AstrolDeluxe does not provide a separate chart of contra-antiscia positions (which are reflections relative to the 0d Aries and 0d Libra tropical equinox axis) - these positions are always 180d opposing the provided solstice or antiscia points, so you can easily see them.

The way that you will use this feature is with the File, Compare option. When you have the single wheel that says in the upper right corner Solstice Points Zodiac, the File menu will give you the choice Compare Solstice Points Chart to Natal Chart. Selecting that will give you a biwheel that is probably not too interesting, but on the biwheel's File menu is Compare to Third Chart, which lets you pick the chart of another person or click on the Here & Now button for a transits chart. Then, with the triwheel on the screen, the Display menu will give you the Multi-Wheel aspects list choices. The program will use the aspects set defined for Arabic Parts at Customization, Aspect Orbs. By default, this includes one degree orbs for the conjunction and opposition, which are the important aspects for the antiscia and the contra-antiscia, as well as one degree orbs for the square and trine aspects. It does not seem to matter in which order you compare two people for solstice point synastry. I see the same six conjunctions and oppositions when I click on Outer to Middle whether I start with my wife's chart or with my chart.

You may decide from visually examining the triwheel that you would like to expand the orbs for these aspects from one degree. You can make that change at Customization, Aspect Orbs, Arabic Parts, where you can also set the trine and square aspect orbs to 0 if you want.

Version 8.6.1 added new commands for doing a transits report, together with an addition to the Standard template called the Cluster report template. If you have calculated a transits list from Options, List Transits & Progressions, and are then at Interpret, Report Options, and you click on the Report Order tab, look to the left for the Report Items list where the new commands are near the bottom. The new commands include ExcludeHouseIngresses, DoAllExcept, and DoAll. The first command can be moved into a Report Order sequence as is. The DoAll and DoAllExcept commands will trigger a list of possible choices down below from which you can select what will be appended to the DoAll or DoAllExcept command. The choices include Ingresses, Harmonious, Inharmonious, Conjunctions, and the names of each of the planets.

I created a new default template that illustrates use of the new transits report commands. To add it to your program when you are in the above form, click on File and Restore Default Templates. You will now see underneath Standard in the Report Templates listbox the Cluster template. Select Cluster and then click on the Report Order tab. If you then scroll down to the bottom in Report Order, you can see that the new template replaces the all-encompassing command at the end of the Standard list - DoTransitsGrid - with multiple sections that group or cluster the different types of transit delineations, starting with a section of all the House Ingresses, then a section called Challenges that has just the inharmonious aspects, a section called Opportunities that has all the harmonious aspects, and finally a section called Endings and Beginnings that has all the conjunction aspects.

If you use the DoAll command to specify a particular planet, such as DoAllJupiter or DoAllSaturn, that planet will not be repeated later, even if you follow the command with the chronologically-oriented DoTransitsGrid command.

Version 8.6.2 added a Historical Graph to the menu bar at Options, Research
Charts. This graph shows how many charts are in the current search selection
from each year of the 20th century. It is intended to give a fast overview
of the years when the people in the list were born. If one clicks for the
Historical Graph before doing any searches, it gives an overview of the years
in which people were born for the charts database as a whole. This can help
one to determine if the frequencies that one is getting result from
astrological factors or result from the demographics of the collection.

Version 8.6.3 fixed a problem where Pagebreak could put a break in the middle
of a word at the end of a section.

Version 8.6.3 fixed a problem where if the glyph font was turned on at
Customization, Use Astrological Font then the planet names would be blank in
the Aspect Patterns report. This problem may have started with version
8.5.3.

Version 8.6.4 added the Black Moon Lilith as a choice at the end of the
planets listbox when doing By Dominant searches, which are on the
Search Two tab at Options, Research Charts.

Version 8.6.5 makes three small fixes. 1) When progressing a chart set for
12 AM (= 0 AM), the program was capable of reaching a state where AM became
PM (at an advanced age) and the program suddenly interpreted it as an unknown
birth time chart, thereby changing the house cusps. 2) Double-clicking on
the grid of aspects or synastry gave an error because the program was trying
to read the Sabian Symbol file - fix to only do this when the Table of
Planets and Houses is on the screen. 3) after displaying Gauquelin Sector
Placements, the program needed to clear the Box$ variable for future use.

Version 8.6.6 makes a change to how the nprom.hnp, nprof.hnp, npromc.hnp,
and nprofc.hnp files with the different male and female interpretations are
used. Before this change, if the file ending with the letter c existed,
that user-changed file would always be preferred over the original, unedited
file. Starting with this version, the size of the edited and unedited files
are also tested. If the unedited file is larger than the edited file, then
the reportwriter uses the larger unedited file. This is necessary now that
I am releasing new nprom.hnp and nprof.hnp files that combine the Moon's
Node aspect and Black Moon Lilith aspect interpretations.

If the user edited an old npromc.hnp or nprofc.hnp file, they could keep their
changes by renaming their c files to mymc.hnp and myfc.hnp, in order to edit
both their old files and copies of the new larger files, in order to copy and
paste their changes into copies of the new files. Rename your c files BEFORE
trying to open the new nprom.hnp and nprof.hnp files.

Version 8.7.1 adds Group Signature to the menu bar of the Search form, which you access via Options, Research Charts. The primary anticipated use is to research what astrological traits or dynamics families may have in common. The only menu choice at present is the planetary strengths bar graph. This graph, with bars for the harmonious and inharmonious energies of each planet, shows you if the group as a whole tends to specialize in or be dominated by particular planetary energies.

To narrow the list down to members of a family, use the By Text search on the Search Two tab. The fastest search is to uncheck Remarks, check Last Name, and enter the family last name in the Search text field. Then click the ToolBar button with the Binoculars icon or select Search2, Begin Search.

I added an Exclude option to the By Text search form so that you can perform additional searches to remove unrelated chart records from the results list, either by First Name or Record #. If you end up with many Derived charts in your search results, such as saved progressed, return, or composite charts, you can select to exclude all Derived charts at Search One, Derived Charts.

To have more complete control over who is marked as being a member of a family, you could enter a grouping term, something like 'Kennedy family member', in any of the three Notes fields in More Chart Data for each family member, resave that chart, and then use By Text to search Notes, More Chart Data, for that phrase. The results will show you what the family has in common, the areas in which the members are weak and the areas in which the members are strong.

It takes longer to search the More Chart Data file than it does to search your normal charts (cht) file, because More Chart Data items are saved as linked records in a Microsoft Data Base (mdb) companion file. If a search appears to become frozen, press the Escape key [normally at the upper left of your keyboard], restart your computer, and try again. For faster searches, you can also put something distinctive in the short Remarks field for each family member.

In addition to family groups, it can be educational to create planet strength signature graphs for related groups of people in the collection of 5,200 Famous Charts. The program limits you to a maximum of 300 charts per Planet Strengths graph, but the graphs seem to be most informative when you limit them to under 100 people. You can use the By Birthday search on Search Two to do this. For example, at By Text I selected 'author' for Remarks and Male, which gave me 347 male authors, too many, so at By Birthday I unchecked Month and Day and in the Year field put >1935. That search reduced the results down to 76 male authors. The resulting Planet Strengths graph has the imaginative Moon much stronger than the Sun or any other planet, with disciplined Saturn second, followed by Jupiter and Venus in 3rd and 4th place.

A search for female author gave 114 results -- I then put >1900 at By Birthday which reduced the results down to 87 female authors. This showed a different signature where rebellious Uranus and expansive Jupiter dominated. In the first half of the century, Uranus-type women were more likely to break with traditional female roles by becoming authors.

If one does a search on the Famous Charts in which the only criteria is to have been born after 1985, then 96 young people qualify and Pluto is the dominant planet in their charts. I saw and wrote in the Halloran Aspect Pattern interpretations that strong Pluto youngsters know at an early age what they want to do with their life.

You can capture the results of a Group Signature search in three ways:

1) On the pop-up Planet Strengths form is a button Save Picture. It will suggest a name such as plstr3.gif, but you can change both the name and the type of image file. The saved picture will include the caption underneath the graph that shows the name of the charts file, how many records your search found, and the details of the cumulative searches that produced those record results.

2) Also on the pop-up form appears a button Print Form, which lets you print the graph to any print driver installed on your computer.

3) The actual Harmony and Inharmony numbers accumulated as a result of aspects to each planet can be saved in a comma-delimited csv file. On the File1 menu of the Search form appears Save Planet Strengths to File. The program will remember whatever file and location you enter at that file dialog. The program will write to that csv extension file when you select to generate the planet strengths bar graph at Group Signature. If you forget to change the file, the next planet strengths bar graph that you generate during the current program session will overwrite the file. I find it most helpful to open these csv extension files in the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program because I can see what numbers line up with what planets. Also, you can click on the colorful Chart Wizard icon in Excel to get Excel's own column graph of the planet strength numbers.

For graph clarity, do not have a lot of additional planet points turned on at Customization, Planets. You will probably only find themes involving the major planets anyway.

Once you have the signature for the family or group saved, you can compare it to the Planet Strengths bar graph for any individual member of the family or group in order to see how typical is the individual -- how well the individual fits in with the family. An astrologer consulting with the human resources department for a company could even determine if a particular workplace has a distinct signature and then estimate in advance how comfortably an individual would fit into that workplace.

You can double-click on the upper Harmony or lower Inharmony sections of each planet's bar on the graph in order to see a pop-up window of the aspects that contributed to that strength. If you want, you can click on Select All and then on Copy in order to paste all of the aspects into a word processor, where Tools and Word Count will show you the number of paragraphs/aspects. Such counts do not distinguish between major and minor aspects, take into account how exact were the aspects, or know that if they involved a planet of a known birthtime chart near one of the four chart angles that the program added angular weight, as do the accumulated Harmony and Inharmony strength numbers.

Version 8.7.1 made display improvements to Options, Research Charts.

Version 8.7.1 fixes a problem for customers who have high-end Windows 7 systems who were getting a harmless error 48 - unable to load DLL, whenever they exited from the AstrolDeluxe ReportWriter program. Commented out a declaration for a non-existent OCX at the end of the ter32.bas that came with the word processor control into which AstrolDeluxe sends its interpretation reports. The declaration was for a function in a nonshipping library called toc.ocx.

Version 8.7.1 fixed a problem with the Combined Chart, also known as the combined time-space midpoint chart, where it only put the first person's name followed by a forward slash and then nothing.